The invention relates to an apparatus for the continuous rolling of dough and similar plastic materials to a continuous strip, provided with a stock holder, and three rollers which are disposed below the holder and are connected to a drive mechanism, with one top roller having a rough surface for conveying the dough out of the holder, and with the central axes running parallel and the distances between the peripheries of the rollers and the drive mechanisms of the rollers being such that going from the holder the strip is formed and conveyed between one of the rollers and each of the other rollers.
An apparatus of this type is known from Dutch Pat. No. 76,295. In the known apparatus the central axes of three rollers are at different levels, the bottom and the top roller have approximately the same diameter, the middle roller has a larger diameter, for example, twice the size, the top roller has a rough surface, the other two rollers have smooth surfaces, between the middle roller and each of the other rollers there is a gap to permit passage of the dough, and disposed between the bottom and top rollers opposite the middle roller provision is made for a filler piece which with the rollers forms a pressure chamber for the dough. The peripheral speeds of the bottom and middle rollers are the same. During operation, in which the stock holder is full of dough or another similar plastic material, the top roller with the rough surface conveys the dough through the gap between the top roller and the middle roller into the pressure chamber, where--particularly in the case of soft types of dough--it is compressed and then discharged down through the gap between the middle roller and the bottom roller. The continuous strip formed in the process is removed from the peripheries of the bottom rollers by means of knives.
It is important that during the processing of yeast dough products the number of carbon dioxide cells developed in the dough through the working of the yeast should increase in a second proving period. In the known apparatus, the pressing of the dough between the rollers and into the pressure chamber for the purpose of obtaining a continuous strip less than about 15 mm thick breaks the structure of the dough, and the walls of the gas cells developed in a previous rising period are broken. The continuous strip thus obtained consists of a so-called dead dough, in which the number of gas cells increases little, if at all, during a second proving period, while the dough does rise again. After further processing of the strip of dough and baking of it, a bread product with large gas cells is obtained, so that the bread product can retain relatively little moisture and soon becomes stale. In practice therefore, only strips with minimum thickness of about 15 mm can be obtained with the known apparatus.